History provides lessons for teams. Let’s take the time to explore a few of them.

This post explores patterns that I see resulting from the interaction of ability, demands and support. Let me explicitly state what I mean by those variables —

Ability is the capacity to do something through talent and skill.

Demands are the problems that must be solved or managed.

Support is active help and encouragement.

The historical cases below are personified. We know these people as leaders, but they represent many people who worked with the leader to achieve some ends. Please note that the cases only refer to the point-in-time referenced.

The Skilled Pattern (Margaret Thatcher, 1979-1990)

Margaret Thatcher skillfully led Britain as its Prime Minister from 1979-1990. She was more than able — she was a brilliant organizer, a first-class speaker and utterly focused.

When she became Prime Minister in 1979, the demands on her were formidable, such as nationalized industries that couldn’t compete with their global counterparts; a history of bitter labor strikes against nationalized industries; a burdensome and growing tax on the private parts of the economy; potential loss of supporters as she made changes; and the Cold War.

She privatized nationalized industries. She faced off against the powerful trade unions. She reformed the tax structure. She gained new supporters by selling public housing to its renters. She supported the reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

I think Thatcher’s personality comes shining through when she said, “Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.”

What lessons can teams learn from Margaret Thatcher experience as Prime Minister? Know your mission. Execute it skillfully. Constantly be looking for ways to gain new supporters.

The Swamped Pattern (Michael D. Brown, 2003-2005)

Michael D. Brown was Deputy Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) who was swamped during the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005. Brown appears to have had virtually zero background in emergency management prior to his appointment as Deputy Director of FEMA in 2003. The bulk of his career having been spent practicing law and as Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association.

Up until Hurricane Katrina, FEMA had been considered a model federal agency because of its successful responses to past disasters, such as the Midwestern floods of 1993, the Northridge earthquake of 1994, and the Oklahoma City terrorist attacks of 1995. When the demands from Katrina became known, FEMA’s response was considered by many, especially by the residents who were caught in the path of its destruction, as an utter failure.

Email messages sent by Brown during the disaster tell something about his ability. He wrote, “Can I quit now? Can I go home;” and “trapped (as FEMA head) … please rescue me.” I can’t imagine any circumstances in which Margaret Thatcher would have ever sent similar messages. Less than 45 days after he had sent the email message, swamped and resigned, Brown quit his Deputy Director position.

Did Brown have all the support necessary to respond satisfactory to the demands caused by Hurricane Katrina? No, I don’t think he did. The organization of federal emergency agencies had change considerably after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Regardless, I think his poor ability eroded support he could have had and prevented him from maximizing the support he did have.

What lessons can teams learn from Michael Brown’s Hurricane Katrina experience? Know your ability. If your demands outstrip your ability, find more support or find a different mission.

The Scuttled Pattern (Carly Fiorina, 1999-2005)

Carleton (Carly) Fiorina was CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999-2005. Her command ship was scuttled in 2005 when she lost the support of HP’s board.

Prior to HP, Fiorina was the executive vice president at AT&T responsible for spin off and initial public offering of Lucent Technologies. She joined Lucent’s executive management team where she was chairman of a joint venture and later a group president for its global service provider business. I think it’s fair to say she was a person of proven ability.

When she became CEO of HP, the demands on the business were considerable. It had been unsuccessful at exploiting the Internet. It had lost ground to perennial rivals IBM and Sun Microsystems. And Compaq and Dell Systems were growing thus eroding HP’s share of the PC market.

In 2001, Fiorina’s plan was to break up HP and merge the parts she kept with PC maker Compaq. HP board member Walter Hewlett (the son of the “H” in HP) publicly objected to the merger describing it as an act of desperation. David Packard (son of the “P” in HP) publicly said that the merger plans were a cruel departure from the values and corporate culture of HP’s founders.

Describing the situation, Fiorina said, “Most of the media… is positioning the merger with Compaq and the recent actions by Walter Hewlett and David Packard as a fight between the past and the future.”

Fiorina won the battle for the future, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. The win had cost her support. She continued to win battles, but lose supporters. Each lost supporter drilled another hole in the hull of her command ship. Eventually the bilge pumps couldn’t keep up and the ship sank.

What lessons can teams learn from Carly Fiorina’s HP experience? Support is precious. Find strategies that supporters believe are right even if they aren’t your favorites. Constant fighting with supporters, especially public brawls, will eventually scuttle your ship.

The Bored Pattern (Winston Churchill, 1945-1949)

After successfully leading Britain through World War II, Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party lost the election and he was forced to step down as Prime Minister. It crushed him. Without popular support and the high-demands of being Prime Minister, he grew frustrated and bored.

Never a ray of sunshine, his sarcasm and black moods increased. Although he remained in Parliament, he brooded over the atomic bomb, the Soviet menace, and creating “a United States of Europe.” But he had enormous amounts of free time compared to the war years as Prime Minister.

He channeled his unused ability into writing and painting. He was excellent at both. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and his impressionist paintings have been exhibited around the world and continue to attract attention. On painting, he said, “Armed with a paint-box, one cannot be bored, one cannot be left at a loose end, one cannot ‘have several days on one’s hands.'”

But things change. Uncertainty about foreign threats created demands that matched his ability. Support began building. In 1951, his Conservative Party won a majority and Churchill returned to being Prime Minister.

What lessons can teams learn from Winston Churchill’s post-World War II experiences? Don’t waste your talent and skill. Focus your unused ability on activities that provide you with a sense of accomplishment. Keep supporters aware of your abilities. Things will change.

The Energized Pattern (Mahatma Gandhi, 1915-1945)

Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi energized and led the Indian subcontinent out of British domination. I consider him the greatest change agent of the Twentieth Century.

After ten years of leading the civil rights movement in South Africa. Gandhi returned to India in 1915, He faced daunting demands. British dominance had become the status quo for two generations of people born on the Indian subcontinent. And Britain was determined to maintain the dominance by all means necessary.

Using methods of nonviolent resistance, a philosophy of fearlessness, and his personal example, his Indian independence movement gained more supporters. And with more support came new demands, which called for him as leader to develop new skills. One generation after his return, the movement won its independence.

I question whether anyone would have said in 1915 that Gandhi had the ability to successfully lead a movement of this size and complexity. But I believe he convinced himself that he could and in the process energizing himself and his followers to develop the necessary skills.

Gandhi said the following about acquiring ability, “Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.”

What lessons can teams learn from Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle for Indian independece? Have faith. Believe in yourself. Set an example. Use the difference between your perceived skills and your desired skills as energy for bridging that gap.

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What’s the difference between the cases of Thatcher and Gandhi versus Brown, Fiorini and Churchill? Support. If your team is failing to nurture support, you will fall.

What’s the difference between the cases of Thatcher and Gandhi? Thatcher had an existing (governmental) structure to use to implement her policies. Gandhi had to create a new structure. Thatcher was clearly skillful and energized, but Gandhi’s movement seems to me to have required much more energy.

Did Brown fail because he didn’t believe in himself like Gandhi did? No, I suspect Brown did believe in himself. He may, however, have suffered from hubris. With better support, he may have been able overcome demands that swamped him. But he apparently didn’t foster that support.

What does the case of Churchill tell us? An active life is bound to have set backs. The period described wasn’t Churchill’s first set back. With support, our abilities can be applied to larger demands.

Rules trip up both individuals and teams causing unintended consequences.

We learn rules about such things as what we can do, what we can question, and what we can say.

A rule dictates behavior. But when transformed into a guide, it enables you to choose appropriate behavior.

Let’s explore three rules that trip up some teams and how they might be transformed into guides —

Rule 1: We must never force a teammate off the team

I admire your loyalty to your teammates.

Can you always retain a teammate? For instance, what do you do when a teammate is undermining the team’s productivity? (See my post Stop That Mole Now.) As productivity declines, letting this rule dictate behavior may unintentionally cause investors to lose confidence and stop investing.

Can you sometimes force a teammate off the team? If so, when is it appropriate or inappropriate to force someone out? Answering that question will help you explore the boundaries for loyalty so Rule 1 doesn’t limit or destroy the team.

The answers around boundaries can help transform this rule into a guide. Rule 1 might be transformed into a guide like — we can sometimes force a teammate off the team when their behavior is destroying productivity; or when we have insufficient funds; or when their skills no longer fit our mission.

This guide doesn’t force you to retain a teammate in all situations — it offers you choices.

Rule 2: We must always be fully transparent with our clients

I admire your desire to be open and honest.

Can you always be fully transparent to your clients? For example, will you tell a client about missing a milestone because a member of your team is an alcoholic and went on a bender? If I were the client, a disclosure like that would cause me to completely lose confidence in the team. The unintended consequence — you would lose me as a client.

Can you sometimes be fully transparent with a client? If so, when is it appropriate and inappropriate to be fully transparent? Answering that question will help you explore the circumstances where transparency fits as well for your client as it does for you.

For instance, exploration might lead the transformation of Rule 2 into a guide like — we can sometimes be fully transparent with our client when the disclosure helps the client; or when we analyze and accept the risk of our communication; or when our conscious won’t allow any other alternative.

The team now has more choices about how it communicates with clients rather than a dictate.

Rule 3: We must always placate our customers

I admire your desire to please your customer through subscribing to the adage, “The customer is always right.”

Can you always placate the customer? For example, will you let your customer’s business fail so that they can enjoy a temporary period where they think they are right but you know otherwise? I suppose that’s compassionate, but it’s unintended consequence is the loss of any future business.

Can you sometimes placate the customer? If so, when is it appropriate and inappropriate to placate them?

Exploring that question may lead you to transform Rule 3 into a guide like — we can sometimes placate our customers when they are having a crisis; or when we are lost and confused; or when they have gun to our head.

This guide generates some unsavory choices for me. But they are much better in my mind than the behavior the rule demands.

Clear the Tripwires

Rules often make life simpler and better. When they fit, they work well. But things change. When rules stopping fitting the team and where it is now — they often unintentionally limit or destroy the team.

Listen for the telltale words I/we must never… or I/we must always… When you detect they are in play, you’ve discovered a rule. State it precisely and transform it into a guide.

Remove the tripwires that are limiting productivity and threatening your team. Give your team choices rather than dictates.

What rule is your team tripping over? How might it be transformed into a guide?

Do you have a mole undermining the work of your team? Someone who constantly complains privately to any teammate who will listen but refuses to bring that same complaint publicly to the team? Someone whose actions are destroying teamwork?

A mole erodes productivity. Stop that mole now.

A team is like a garden. A good gardener manages pests —

Bambi, a deer, can kill a portion of your garden by eating your produce’s leaves. His attacks can be seen so they can be managed by the non-specialist, by using such means as scaring him; erecting a fence; planting produce that he doesn’t like; and using chemicals that make your plants smell or taste yucky.

Buck, a mole, undermines the roots of your garden killing your produce. But unlike Bambi, you can’t see Buck in action so his attacks are almost impossible to mange by the non-specialist. For instance, scaring him won’t work because you can’t see him; erecting a fence won’t stop him because he does his work under the surface; planting different produce won’t stop him because his food source is the worms, insects and grubs beneath your garden; and using chemicals to kill the insects and grubs won’t stop him because his primary food source is the worms.

Bambi’s behavior can be managed so that it is an annoyance. Buck’s behavior is much different — it’s destructive.

Real moles aren’t malicious. Their intention is to eat rather than destroy the garden. I admire them for their single mindedness and work ethic. I, however, disdain a mole on my team.

I believe the Bucks of the world think their actions are helpful. But unlike my ability to manage the Bambis, I don’t have the special skills necessary to consistently manage or turnaround the Bucks. And in my experience, I estimate that there are only 0.1% of all managers who have that special management (therapy) skill.

What’s to be done? Confirm you are dealing with a sibling of Buck’s by — bringing the tunneling behavior to the person’s attention, telling them it’s unacceptable, and determining whether the tunneling continues. If it does, work with HR to immediately rid yourself of them.

Once they’re gone, the team will feel like the weight of the world was lifted from their shoulders. Productivity will skyrocket. Stop that mole. Now.

]]>http://stevenmsmith.com/stop-that-mole-now/feed/8http://stevenmsmith.com/stop-that-mole-now/It Works for You: It Doesn’t Work for Mehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/beingeffective/~3/xy0UpllkyFE/
http://stevenmsmith.com/it-works-for-you-it-doesnt-work-for-me/#commentsSun, 10 Jan 2010 20:18:05 +0000http://stevenmsmith.com/?p=1179

When you coach another teammate, keep in mind that

what works for you may not work for me.

Let me share an example — a service I offer is coaching people on how to more effectively lead team meetings. Whenever a team is exploring a topic, there comes a time when the facilitator needs to gain everyone’s attention so they can move the process to the next step.

When I’m the facilitator, that’s easy for me to do. I stand-up, raise my hands and say, “Let’s stop for a moment.” That works 95% of the time. If it doesn’t, I say those words louder, sometimes shouting them out. I can’t recall that ever failing to gain everyone’s attention.

I used to think standing up and raising my hands was a powerful method, “a secret,” for gaining everyone’s attention. It works for me. Why shouldn’t it work for everyone?

A decade ago, my colleague Esther Derby quickly dispelled any notion that I had discovered a universal facilitation secret. She told me that that the same method didn’t work for her. She correctly pointed out that it probably worked for me because I am a 6′ 3″, 205 lb (191 Cm, 91Kg) male with a deep, loud voice.

When I coach people about facilitation, I explore with them ways they can gain everyone’s attention. For instance, they might clang a bell, wave a flag or stand on a chair. Sometimes the methods I personally use may work for them, but I assume adjustments are always required.

Consciously knowing more about what you do to produce an effect is vital starting point for transferring what you know. Feedback from others will take you another step towards more conscious knowledge. But keep in mind, what works for you may not work for me.

Poor coaches just tell their teammate how they do things. Great coaches tailor advice so it fits their teammate rather than themselves.

Leadership is the ability to adapt the setting so everyone feels empowered to contribute creatively to solving the problems.

Leadership is an ability, meaning a leader has a capacity to do something through talent and skill. Talent is natural ability and skill is proficiency gained through training and experience. Talent certainly helps, but it isn’t required. I know many people whose natural leadership ability was close to zero but through training, experience, and most of all, persistence, became great leaders.

Leadership is adaptive, meaning that the leader makes adjustments. A leader who fails to adjust to the territory will lose their way. Only fools willingly follow someone who is lost.

Leadership acts on asetting, meaning a leader adjusts the state of the surroundings and people. A leader carefully observes those states and discerns significance looking for how to adapt the setting most effectively.

Leadership empowers, meaning a leader inspires confidence and self-esteem. And that inspiration comes in many flavors. Some leaders inspire by bold talk; others by soft talk; and others by their example. There are many ways to empower rather than a single way.

Leadership acts on people’s feelings, meaning a leader finds ways to link to people’s instinct or intuition. Leaders help everyone feel empowered, which in many organizations with bad histories is a leap of faith. If a leader can also provide concrete evidence that helps the empowerment, wonderful. But evidence usually comes after the leadership actions produce the desired results.

Leadership creates contribution, which means every member gives something. Sometimes that may be sharing an idea. And sometimes that may be holding an ideas in reserve and allowing someone else to arrive at the same idea and share it.

Leadership is about solving the problems, which means closing the gap between things as desired and things as perceived. Everyone works on the solution to intermediary problems while keeping in mind the ultimate problem — closing a gap for the client or customer.

Leadership fosters creativity, meaning imaginative use of limited resources. A leader that enables people to use their imagination is a step closer to solving problems faster, better and cheaper.

Leadership is often attributed to a single individual. It’s easier to communicate success stories that way. People like simple stories that contain cause and effect even when they are wrong.

The more complex story reinforces that everyone on a team can be a leader. The most successful teams create chain reactions of leadership. Adaptation triggers long chains of further adaptations that ultimately solve seemingly impossible problems.

§

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Jerry (Gerald M.) Weinberg for the ideas behind this post. He epitomizes this definition of leadership. His books, workshops, and teaching have deeply influenced me. My definition for leadership is an adaptation of the one he uses in his book On Becoming a Technical Leader, which I highly recommend reading. You will find Jerry’s writing a source of empowerment.

Workshop

When you are a member of team, what hopes do you have for productivity? My hope is for synergy, by which I mean team productivity that is clearly superior to what the sum of the individual members’ productivity might have been working separately.

Productive teamwork — that’s the desire. But how do you organize the team to achieve it?

A school of thought is epitomized by Michael Winner, a British film director, who says, “A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.” Despite my negative reaction to this quote, Mr. Winner’s approach to teamwork has produced successful films.

Another school of thought is epitomized in the Agile Manifesto, “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.” This school of thought sings to me. And I have seen it produce remarkable results in the context of software development.

Would a self-organizing team produce better films than Michael Winner and his team? I don’t know. That’s the kind of question we will explore during this workshop. Join me to learn more about context, teamwork and productivity so you can better organize your team.

Workshop

A vital task for a successful team is to extend membership to the right people and deny membership to the wrong people. If you add or persist with the wrong people, the team will fail at some level.

Feelings about who is excluded cut deep. Talk to anyone about exclusion and you will hear a personal story about a time when that person wasn’t allowed to participate in an activity that they cherished. For instance, I still remember the heartbreaking experience of being cut from my junior high school basketball team.

Intense feelings triggered by bad experiences may cause a person to form survival rules about exclusion. A typical rule is “I must never exclude anyone (because they will get hurt like I did).” If a member of a team operates with this rule, especially if that member is influential, the team will experience pain and anguish.

In this session, you will have the opportunity to be a member of a team. The team will work together to solve a series of problems. The solutions will cause each member to confront their survival rules for inclusion/exclusion. And this confrontation will provide us an opportunity to investigate these rules and work with people to transform them so they and their teams are more effective.

Workshop

Do you want help interpreting the state of your relationships with other members of the organization?

The typical org chart belies the state of the organization. It shows a hierarchical structure that appears neat and simple. But even in the best of organizations, the relationships between people and groups are messy and complex.

We will use a four phase approach to create maps of the organization that provide not only more insight into relationships than the typical org chart, but also provide insight into the effects of organizational rules.

Our goal is to identify effective rules and relationships so they can be preserved. And identify ineffective rules and relationships so we can start transforming them.

Workshop

Each person has their own personal board of directors. The board members are the parts of ourselves that are constantly interacting inside our head. If your board members constantly bicker and fight, these inner conflicts manifest themselves as dysfunctional behavior.

Pioneering family therapist Virginia Satir used a process, a Parts Party, to aid people in accepting, transforming and integrating their parts. With their parts no longer feuding, participants behaved more functionally.

We will use a variation of a Parts Party to convene a meeting of a participant’s personal board of directors. Each workshop participant will have a role in the process. Our goal is to reveal the state of the interactions of today’s board members and transform them to be more functional and effective.

Join me to learn how to integrate your board of directors so they add more value to your personal and professional life.

Workshop

Is your time being wasted in meetings?

For example, you join a problem solving meeting attended by the right six people. But the discussion wanders aimlessly and contributes little to the solution. You feel your time was squandered and wish you would have invested your time doing something that would have made a difference for yourself, your team and your organization.

Without shepherding, discussion may diverge rather than converge. Groups that have consistently effective discussions have a common characteristic — participants step up when needed to help lead the discussion. It’s not a single participant, such as the facilitator, who is the “leader” but rather many leaders who participate in shepherding the discussion to success.

Discussions that plunge participants into rat holes abound in meetings big and small. I’ve seen discussions go awry on trivial issues, such as what picture will hang in the lunch room and who will receive the largest amount of a minuscule bonus pool.

Join this workshop to learn about solutions to these examples and more. Whether you are a manager or an individual contributor, learn how to lead from the front or the back of the meeting room.